Santa Clara-San Francisco County CA Archives Biographies.....Stanford, Jane Lathrop 1825 - 1905
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/ca/cafiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com March 2, 2007, 4:22 am

Author: Eugene T. Sawyer (1922)

  JANE LATHROP STANFORD.—Few American women so deservedly occupy the preeminent
position universally accorded Mrs. Jane Lathrop Stanford in the history of the
American nation, and few Americans, women or men, bid fair to be found equally
prominent to a commanding and revering degree in the halls of fame as the
centuries recede and other men and women of note play their parts and come by
superior merit to the fore. She was born at Albany, N. Y., on August 25, 1825,
was married to Leland Stanford, and began her social life when he was elected
governor of California in 1861, and after his death she was occupied chiefly in
fostering and developing The Leland Stanford, Jr., University, which she had
aided her husband to establish in memory of their son, in 1891, a mere boy cut
off by untimely death.

  In 1901, Mrs. Stanford increased her gifts to the university by transferring
to its trustees securities valued at $18,000,000, her residence in San
Francisco, held at $400,000, and specified for a museum and art gallery, and
some 12,000 acres of land valued at $12,000,000; and she subsequently added
other benefactions, thus making the university the wealthiest university in the
world. She also established the Children's Hospital in her native city, the
Empire State capital, at a cost of $100,000, and provided another $100,000 for
its permanent endowment; and she gave $160,000 to various schools in San
Francisco, particularly favoring the establishing and extension of the German
kindergarten, then bidding for acknowledgment and support, and now admitted as
one of the best things given to the world by the idealists of the Fatherland.

  One of the especially interesting incidents in Mrs. Stanford's philanthropic
and romantic life is her creation of a special fund for the purchase of books
for the university library—almost a prophetic endeavor on her part in the light
of the appalling disaster that was soon to affect all the great libraries of the
Bay district. In February, 1905, as she was about to sail for the Hawaiian
Islands in the hope of restoring her health, she delivered to the board of
trustees a letter of instruction with respect to the disposition of her jewels,
which in 1899 had been transferred to the trustees to insure the completion of
the Memorial Church. She said: "I was subsequently enabled to erect the Memorial
Church without the necessity of resorting to the sale of these jewels. In view
of the facts and of my interest in the future development of the university
library, I now request the trustees to establish and maintain a library fund,
and upon the sale of said jewels, after my departure from this life, I desire
that the proceeds therefrom be paid into said fund and be preserved intact and
be invested in bonds or real estate as a part of the capital of the endowment,
and that the income therefrom be used exclusively for the purchase of books and
other publications. I desire the fund to be known and designated as the Jewel
Fund." In 1908, in accordance with these instructions from Mrs. Stanford, the
board of trustees established the "Jewel Fund," calling it into activity through
the following resolution. "Now, therefore, in order to carry out said plan of
Mrs. Stanford and to establish and maintain an adequate library fund and to
perform the promise made by this board to her, it is—Resolved, that a fund of
$500,000, to be known and designated as the Jewel Fund is hereby created and
established, which fund shall be preserved intact, and shall be separately
invested and kept invested in bonds or real estate by the board of trustees, and
the increase of said fund shall be used exclusively in the purchase of books and
other publications for the library of the Leland Stanford Junior University,
under the supervision and direction of the library committee of this board of
trustees." The immediate result of this action was to make available for the
purchase of books about $20,000 each year. In 1910, also, the board of trustees
accepted the design of Edwin Howland Blashfield, the artist and author whose
work at the Columbian Exposition, in the Congressional Library at Washington, in
the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and the private residence of C. P. Huntington, New
York City, has given him lasting fame, for a book-plate to be placed in all
books purchased on account of the Jewel Fund. From this journey to Honolulu Mrs.
Stanford did not return alive, for she breathed her last in the Hawaiian Islands
on February 28, 1905.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

HISTORY OF SANTA CLARA COUNTY CALIFORNIA
WITH
Biographical Sketches
OF
The Leading Men and Women of the County Who Have Been Identified With Its Growth
and Development From the Early Days to the Present

HISTORY BY
EUGENE T. SAWYER

ILLUSTRATED COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME

HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 
1922


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/santaclara/bios/stanford1217nbs.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/cafiles/

File size: 5.4 Kb